During the service life of a gas turbine engine and particularly aeroengines, engine derived contaminants and ingestion of airborne particles lead to a build up of matter on aerodynamic surfaces such as fan blades, compressor and turbine blades and vanes and airflow duct walls. This undesirable build-up of matter causes a loss of efficiency of the engine leading to reduced thrust and/or increased fuel burn resulting in increased environmental pollution compared to a clean engine. For the engine's operator this loss of efficiency increases fuel costs and results in shorter intervals between engine overhauls.
Aeroengine washing is well known as disclosed in WO2005/077554A1 for example. In this system engine washing is achieved using three pressurised cleaning fluid nozzles. One nozzle is arranged at a first angle to direct a jet of cleaning fluid into the core engine and the other two are angled at the pressure and suction sides of the fan-blades respectively. Blades and vanes comprise complex shapes and notably a leading edge of the blade twists along its radial length and therefore presents a changing angle of its surface to be cleaned. Therefore, this prior art engine washing nozzle system is disadvantaged as it uses three separate nozzles, that each require independently positioning and each is angled at one specific angle that is not necessarily optimal for cleaning all parts of all the surfaces of the subject component.